The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-07-26
An Untruthful Witness.

Capt. A. S. Carpenter, of Illinois has been
visiting the South. What Capt. Carpenter
claim to distinction is based upon is not
known, but the New York Tribune opens
its columns to him and permits him to dis
play his hatred of the Southern people.
Capt Carpenter declares that he has been
''tender-mouthed0 about the South for four
or five years He thought it was time to
stop the bloodv-shirt cry. While in Texas,
| however. he claims to have heard enough
talk among Southern people 10 convince
him that the old spirit Of the Confederacy
is rs much alive to-day as when Fort Sumter
was fired on. The Southern people are not
asserting that they will fight, but they in
tend to accomplish their aims, nevertheless.
Warming TO the subject, Capt. Carpenter
says:
lone fellow said to me at the hotel where
] was stopping in Galveston that if Presi-
dent Cleveland would stand by his order the
people of the South would 60 up to Wash
ington and take the flags whether or not
there was opposition from the North. You
scratch a genuine Southern man on the
back on the subject Of secession and he is as
much of a secessionist to-day as he ever
was have come home from there thor
oughiy determined to wave the bloody shirt
and denOunce Southern methods and views
until all the secession is trounced out of these
fellows in one way or another 1t is they
who flaunt the bloody shirt, and not the
people of the North
1t is fortunate that in almost every part
of the South there are Northern men who
have for a considerable period of time been
living side by side with the people out of
whom Capt Carpenter has undertaken to
trounce secession views. These men are
| credible witnesses. and many of them have
repeatedly borne testimony to the fact that
the Southern people are as anxious to re
main in the Union as the Northern people
are, and are as loyal to the government.
Capt Carpenter has manufactured his state
ment out of the whole cloth or has been
dreadfullv guyed. The Southern people
do not desire to accomplish what the Con
federacy undertook, but they do desire
peace, and also desire honest government,
like that which the present administration
is giving the country. This man Capt. Car
penter claims to have met in Galveston
hotel, doubtless saw that the Captain was
hunting for bloody shirt material and con
cluded to furnish him some.
In this connection it is well to say that it
is strange Capt. Carpenter did not mention
that mans name. As far as the captured
flags are concerned it is known to the coun-
try that the Southern people did not ask
their return, and it is also known that the
only feeling excited among the Southern
people by the insane talk of Gen Fairchild
and his companions was one of amusement,
| tinged, perhaps, with contempt. To say
that the Southern people flaunt the bloody
| shirt is the veriest nonsense. Senator Sher-
man and few others of his party are en-
gagged in that foolish business, and they are
actuated by Just the feeling that animates
Capt. Carpenter.
Capt. Carpenter will not injure the South.
During the last few years the people of the
South and those of the North have been
drawn close together by business interests.
In this way they have become known to
each other, and whatever the differences
that may have been between them in the
past, they now know that none exist except
in the imaginations of such fellows as Capt.
| Carpenter.